Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

386 ENVY AS TAX COLLECTOR
If antipathy to this class [the bankers], an innocent at least, not to say a
very useful one[!], of His Majesty's subjects, if ill-will, and not the
necessity of providing for the exigencies of the state, were the fit motive for
the common father of all and his advisers to be governed by, the rigour of the
tax would be a recommendation of it [and] nothing would be listened to that
exhibited a tendency of softening it .... I
Today this method might be successfully applied, say, to American
doctors, who have for many years been the whipping boys of envious
public opinion.
The procedure of making tax returns public is found, incidentally, in
Swiss communities, where it is possible to find out, without valid
reason, the amount of income and assets declared by one's neighbour or
competitor. But a small community near Lucerne goes one better.
In Wolhusen (and one or two neighbouring communities) a list is
printed, and sold by schoolchildren from door to door, with the names,
assets and incomes of all local residents. For weeks after its publication,
there is ample food for malicious and envious gossip. In front of me now
is the 1964 register. It starts off with A. A., factory hand, with assets of
2,000 francs and a taxable income of 3,400 francs. The same page
contains the name of Direktor E. B., with assets of 270,000 francs and
an income of 45,400 francs. Of two farmers of the same name, J. B. , one
has assets of 153,000 and an income of 9, 100 francs, and the other only
3,000 and 2,000 francs respectively. The list becomes interesting where
assets and income had to be 'assessed by the special commission,' in
cases, that is, of individuals whose control by their fellow residents' envy
might be especially welcome. Among these there is the doctor J. B.,
with assets of 469,000 francs and an annual income of 75,600 francs,
while the dentist J. R has no assets, but nevertheless earns 41 ,500 francs
per annum. Another dentist makes no more than 20,000 francs, while
the photographer earns 17,400 francs per annum. The cinema owner is
little better off than the self-employed gardener. Printer, butcher, painter,
taxi-man and tiler all earn about the same, some 12,000 francs a year.
The list costs three Swiss francs; the publisher is not named. From
what I was able to learn, it is published by the Social Democratic Party,
1 'Proposal for a Thx on Bankers,' from Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings, critical
edition by W. Stark, New York, 1952, Vol. 1, p. 408.